Daytona Event Final Restrictor-Plate Race For ‘Old’ Cup Car

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Stock-car racing’s premier division will have its third name in six seasons with Saturday’s announcement that in 2008 Nextel Cup will become the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
Nextel and NASCAR signed a 10-year title sponsorship deal in 2003. The name change had been brewing for some time now, ever since Nextel merged with Sprint two years ago. Now the telecommunications giant directs all of its marketing efforts toward the Sprint brand.
“It’s never easy to change the name of your primary series, your most important series,” said Brian France, NASCAR chairman and CEO. “In a perfect world, we would change the name as infrequently as possible, but there comes a time when the opportunity outweighs that issue.”
France also mentioned NASCAR feels comfortable with the new name not conflicting with open-wheel sprint cars.
“The branding that will be done in this series and all the effort Sprint has made on its own will help mitigate any kind of confusion,” France said.
Sprint will replace Nextel in all areas of title sponsorship, including the annual all-star race in May at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, which will be known as the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Challenge.

NEW NAME, NEW LOOK: The new painted NASCAR Sprint Cup logo is unveiled in the Daytona International Speedway media center.  (Todd Warshaw/Getty Images)

• The Pepsi 400 was the final restrictor-plate race with the current Nextel Cup car. In October, the Car of Tomorrow will run at Talladega and then full-time in 2008.
“It’s going to make them like the truck races where the guys are all packed tight together,” driver Denny Hamlin said. “Where now our cars are so slick that they’re not handling that well, and we’re starting to spread out like they did in the old days.
“Now we’re going to take a step back to where we were. With the Car of Tomorrow, I think they’re going to suck up to each other so much that you’re just going to have a huge wad.”

• NASCAR’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., gets to pick and choose which products he wants to be associated with via personal services contracts. Friday, he chose sportswear manufacturer adidas.
Financial terms of the deal were not revealed.
Earnhardt admitted he has been attracted to adidas shoes since high school, and he’ll have input on his own line of footwear, apparel and accessories — including a firesuit and racing shoes.
“I’ve always liked their style. They keep it simple and clean,” Earnhardt said. “It’s something that I’ve always enjoyed, so it means a lot to me to be able to pair with a company that I have that kind of admiration for.”
Earnhardt, who’ll move to Hendrick Motorsports in 2008, recently announced a business relationship with Sony.

"Out from where I am,” Bobby Allison said, “it looks like you better not bring the wrong brand of tissue to blow your nose or you’ll get a $100,000 fine."

• Jeff Gordon certainly was a proud father at Daytona, showing off a picture of his infant daughter saved on his cell phone. Ella Sophia was born June 20.
“I’m usually waking up when she’s waking up because you hear her,” Gordon said. “I had to get up early this morning, and she was up all night last night, so it’s definitely got me dragging a little bit today.”

• It just wasn’t the same without Bill France, Jr. around Daytona. The longtime NASCAR chairman had been in failing health and died June 4 at his home in Daytona Beach. He was 74.
“He has meant so much for the sport and the speedway. He worked with his own hands at this track,” Jeff Gordon said. “I think that there was always something a little more special about Bill being here at this track. He took a lot of pride in it. It was always important for him to see a great race here because that’s what he and his father dreamed about and built.”
NASCAR honored France with ceremonial pace laps that included Richard Petty driving a tribute car.

• Bobby Allison is from the old school. He drove in a different era of stock-car racing but offered his opinion on the cheating scandals of today.
“Out from where I am,” Allison said, “it looks like you better not bring the wrong brand of tissue to blow your nose or you’ll get a $100,000 fine. It is so far beyond fair government of the event. They (NASCAR) say they’re trying to make an impression so nobody cheats on anything, but this got good because we raced Fords against Chevys and Dodges. You try to get some sort of an advantage because that’s part of the deal — get to the finish line before the other guy does.”

• Former New York mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani provided an amusing moment during the driver’s meeting. He was attending his first NASCAR event.
“You have to come to New York and do one of these. You have to,” Guiliani demanded.
They tried.